My Pie Monday: John Wozniak's 'Off-the-Shelf' Neo-Brooklyn Pizza

Attached are some pics from an "off the shelf" neo-Brooklyn-style (not sure what to call it other than that — you can probably come up with a better name. It is a Neapolitan-esque crust but with a bit more sauce and cheese) pie I made on the quick last weekend. After spending the day at Governor's Island we popped into Trader Joe's on Court Street (on our way home) and I grabbed some "fresh" plain pizza dough. I wanted to get some of their canned plum tomatoes, too, but there seemed to be a run on them ;)...damn that canned tomato test post and thread :)! That and no Caprese mootz log. Jeeze! Anyway, I dug some scamorza out of the fridge, trimmed the old edges off and had just enough to cover the pie well. The rim is sprinkled with a sea salt blend and the top of the pie was dusted with fresh grated DOP Parmigiano-Reggiano. The sauce is an organic Italian passata (not my fav but all they had at Coluccio last time I went) and a little bit of Italian herb blend.

For this pie, I decided to try/test Kenji's suggestion of broiler first, then stove (That it promotes better rise. It didn't seem to matter at all). It pretty much came out the same as my other pies of late (stove top first then broiler) but the cheese did melt less, which was good.

However, I did not get the small holes that I can get on the under crust when I start on the stove top on very high heat. The under crust looks pretty great all things considered though, just not quite as good as I have gotten going with the stove top first. Interestingly, the rise, for me, with both homemade dough from 00 flour or with TJ's pizza dough, was the same.

This pic is a square pie I made on a whim by doubling my usual homemade dough ball. It is the first and only square pie I have made (far from the last I am sure) and not bad for a first stab. I made it in the L&B style with low-moisture mootz down first, then sauce (Pomi and some leftover homemade sauce with roasted shallots and garlic in it), then a dusting of (pre) grated (fine) domestic Parmesan.

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About the Author

Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been writing about pizza since October 10, 2003. He also founded A Hamburger Today, but burgers don't really do much for him these days. If you find Adam anywhere on SE these days, it's primarily in Talk and in the comments of Slice. He has taken an extended hiatus from his weekly pizza reviews and monthly Home Slice feature while he explores the actual work of pizza-making at Paulie Gee's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

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